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Author
Kokkala, M. | Andsten, T. | Bjorkman, J.
Title
Extinguishment of Liquid Fires With Sprinklers and Water Sprays: Description of the Tests.
Coporate
Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo
Report
VTT Research Report 593, March 1989, 180 p.
Keywords
pool fires | liquid fires | extinguishing | fire extinguishers | fire prevention | sprinklers | nozzles | flow rate | heat flux | water | tests | temperature | flash point
Identifiers
liquid pool fires; free burn characteristics
Abstract
An experimental study of extinguishment of liquid pool fires with plain water has been carried out. The number of extinguishment tests was 109, and some additional tests were made to study the free burn characteristics of the pool fires. The extinguishing system consisted of four open sprinklers or nozzles located symmetrically above a pool lying on a weighing platform. The whole test system was set up inside an 18 m high, 14 m wide, and 27 m long tests hall. Tests were made on ten different liquids with a flash point in the range of -6 deg C to 234 deg C using seven different sprinklers or nozles. The nozzle height was varied from 3 m to 8 m above the fuel surface. The pool size was varied from 0.4 m2 to 12 m2. Most of the tests were made using a 1.6 m2 circular pool. Temperatures were measured at more than twenty locations both in the plume and in the fuel. Other measurements comprised pressure and flow rate for each nozle, heat flux to the surroundings, and the wieght of the pool. Recordings from each sensor were taken once or twice per second. This report describes the technical details of the experimental arrangement, the direct observations made during the tests, and some direct results of measurements. A more thorough data analysis will be published later.